The Birth of Utopia

The Birth of Utopia Zhang Pei Where Sir Thomas erred, it was the fault of the man, and not of the poet; for that way of patterning a commonwealth was most absolute, though he, perchance, hath not so absolutely performed it. Sir Philip Sidney, The Defense of Poesie (17) At the end of Plato’s Republic, Chapter IX, when Socrates has described his ideal state, Glaucon expresses his disbelief that there exists “such a one anywhere on earth,” to which Socrates replies: But in heaven, perhaps, a pattern is laid up for the man who wants to see and found a city within himself on the basis of what he sees. It doesn’t make any difference whether it is or will be somewhere. For he would mind the things of this city alone, and of no other. (592b; Plato 275) Socrates, or precisely Plato, has no confidence in realizing his Republic on earth; he withdraws instead from practical politics and places hope in miracle. If miracle means impossibility in practice, then how can his ideal city be possible in the world? Plato’s answer, at least in the Republic, is that either philosophers acquire the kingly office in the state, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, that is to say, both political power and philosophy be united in the same person (473d). For Plato, a king can hardly become a philosopher unless by miracle (Epistle 7 326a–b); the other way seems to be the only choice. Nevertheless an obstacle still remains: how can a philosopher become a king? Plato wisely remained silent on this point. How can a philosopher become a king? It is a difficult question. And it seems to be all the more difficult inasmuch as a ‘king’ in the Platonic sense is not simply one who holds kingly office, but one who possesses kingly science (Politician 292e), one who is [End Page 304] a legislator, like Lycurgus, of human civilization. 1800 years later, Thomas More in the Utopia offered a solution to this baffling question. Raphael Hythlodaeus,1 the person who introduces Utopia to More and others in the book, thus reports the history of Utopia: “Utopia had been called Abraxa before Utopus’ conquest, and has gained its present name thereafter” (Utopia 113).2 Utopus was not only the Conqueror of Abraxa, but also the Founder of Utopia, whose institutions and laws made Utopia into “not merely the best but the only one which can rightly claim the name of a commonwealth.” But who is Utopus? In a letter to Erasmus, More confesses that “in my daydreams I have been marked out by my utopians to be their king forever” (London, 4 Dec. 1516; Letters 85). So Utopus is but the author’s projection in the Utopia, and More himself is the actual legislator of Utopia. The characterization of Utopus, therefore, serves as More’s answer to the previous question in regard to how a philosopher can become a king, though in language, rather than in reality. Then, how did Utopus become the king of Utopia? Raphael Hythlodaeus informs us that before Utopus’s arrival the inhabitants had been continually quarrelling among themselves on issues of religion. He observed that the general dissensions among the individual sects who were fighting for their religion had given him the opportunity of overcoming them all (Utopia 219–221). He, just like William the Conqueror and Henry VII, acquired his kingship through military conquest. Here, however, arises another question: to what extent is Utopus’s kingship legitimate? Of course, the official chronicles of Utopia would say it was a war of liberation, by which justice was done and evil defeated. But from the viewpoint of the native inhabitants, it was first of all a successful foreign invasion. The people of Abraxa were deprived of their land; for most of them, Utopus was a foreign ruler, and even a usurper. In fact, according to Hythlodaeus’s report, Utopus created a series of laws and institutions for his people and obtained for them a happy life of humane civilization. We are told that, as soon as Utopus had conquered Utopia, the first...

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